First Look: Katie Reus’s Mating Instinct (March 5, 2013)

Surviving for centuries, powerful lupine shifter Jayce Kazan managed to stay away from humans until he met Kat Saburova and was consumed by the need to protect her. But while Jayce shared his passion with the human seer, he refused to make her his bondmate—a refusal that caused the end of their relationship.

A year later, an attack that left Kat near death has resulted in another lupine shifter turning her. Furious that he wasn’t the one to save her, Jayce is determined to show Kat that he is the one she should rely on. But the newly turned shifter is still traumatized and worried that she’ll hurt those she loves, unless she can learn to control her inner wolf.

And as Jayce struggles to protect Kat from her own worst instincts and convince her to rekindle their love, the extremists who almost killed her are looking to finish the job.

Mating Instinct is the third novel in Katie Reus's Moon Shifter series, which features a complicated and compelling relationship.

When Kat Saburova was still human, all she wanted was to have a life with Jayce. She thought if he changed her and made her a shifter, they could become bondmates and have the rest of their lives together. Jayce Kazan is the scarred enforcer for the Counsel and his visage usually causes human and shifter alike to cringe in fear, but for Kat he was always her puppy.

Jayce's protective instinct over her offered her a feeling of safety she had never known before. And she believed him when he said he refused to change her because so few survived the change, but when she found out he lied, she left. How could she continue to give herself, heart and soul, to a man who told her he cared, but lied that they could never have that forever? Then the Antiparanormal League’s psychotic leader ordered her to be kidnapped, tortured and beaten within a inch of her life. While they tortured her, she didn’t pray to God, she prayed for Jayce to find her and make her safe.

“I…I’m sorry I blamed you. When I was abducted, I…I called out your name. I waited for you to come for me.” When he jerked back as if she’d physically struck him, her stomach roiled.

But Jayce wasn’t the one who found her first, and with a choice of dying or the slim possibility of surviving the change, she took her chances and let her friend Aiden try to save her.

In Mating Instinct, Kat is trying to come to terms with her decision, trying to learn how to be a shifter. Yet even harder for Kat is to come to terms with the turmoil of emotions that are only enhanced by her new shifter abilities. She is filled with rage at the APL for what was done to her; the helplessness and the despair that engulfed her during her kidnapping are feelings not easily forgotten. All she can focus on is getting revenge.

She would find control of her life in other places. Like revenge.

The word rang loudly in her head. Revenge. After what that APL bastard had done to her, she was going to make every single one of them pay. And she didn’t need Jayce interfering with those plans.

Jayce accepted his current assignment to be close to Kat again. Now that she is a shifter, he wants to teach her to fight so she never feels vulnerable again. And while she is fighting the rage for what was done to her, he will protect her from herself, because he knows she wants vengeance against the APL. He also knows that whatever she is thinking would only lead to her death and become the catalyst for a war between the humans of the APL and the shifters.

“Tell me why you’re really here,” Jayce finally said.

“I heard APL members hung out here,” she said quietly.

His gaze hardened. “And just what were you planning on doing to them?”

She shrugged and leaned back in an effort to put some distance between them. “I don’t see how that’s any of your concern.”

A rumbling sound came from deep within his chest. Almost a territorial growl. “Everything you do is my concern.”

Kat knows that her emotions are out of control, both from her kidnapping and from her transformation, but can she let go of her rage and reach for the love that she thought she left behind?

Lucy Dosch writes book reviews for her blog http://ebookobsessed.com. Her e-reader has turned her love of reading into an obsession. When she is not reading, she likes to spend time with her husband and two daughters.

I've been eyeing this book for the past month and just finished up the other two books in the series. I was surprised by the layers of the story in the first two so I'm looking forward to reading this one! Just one more day!